Feat Taxes, or, It's That Time of the Week Again

[tiornys]

As noted above, looking at only the attack rate ignores half of the scaling issue. The other half is: how many hits does it take to drop a monster? At 1st level, a skirmisher has about 30 HP (exactly 30 with 14 Con). A first level non-striker with no investment is going to average somewhere between 8 and 10 damage per hit, with higher damage values tending to occur on lower accuracy attacks. Strikers will average about 4 more damage. So, first level skirmishers are dying in somewhere between 2 and 4 hits. Increase the levels and you start to see some decay in the rate of monster kill, depending on how generous you are with increasing PC damage. Looking at 3rd level PCs and 3rd level skirmishers, it's taking more like 3-5 hits, although it rapidly becomes much more difficult to make reasonable assumptions about player damage values. Still, let's lowball it. Non-striker: 16 stat, 1d8 weapon/power: 7.5 average damage. At third level, we'll add 1 damage for a magic weapon. That's 4 hits to kill the 1st level skirmisher, and 5.4 hits to kill the 3rd level one.

Now let's look at 21st level (where PC damage just got a boost due to doubling the dice on at-will attacks). A 21st level skirmisher with the same 14 Con has 190 HP. Let's take a PC with a 20 starting stat, boosted to 28 (max possible). A 1d12 weapon (and remember, 2[W] now). +5 enhancement. +4 item bonus from Iron Armbands or similar. And heck, why not a +3 feat bonus from Weapon Focus or similar. That's an average of 32 damage per hit. Which means it takes almost 6 hits to kill the skirmisher.

That's right. It takes MORE HITS for the 21st level PC with higher than baseline stats and every "normal" damage boost to kill an even level skirmisher than it does for a 3rd level PC with almost no damage investment whatsoever. And 21st level is the zenith of Epic tier for this comparison. By 30th level, the above PC has gained 4 damage (+6 enhancement, +6 IAoP, 30 stat). The monster has gained 72 HP. It now takes 7.28 hits for a kill. (edit: by comparison, a PC build more along the lines of the 3rd level example is taking 9.5 hits to kill the 21st level monster, and more than 11 to kill the 30th.)

Of course, since the number of attacks it takes to kill a monster is the number of hits divided by the hit percentage, when player hit rate also decays, you wind up with a rapid increase in the number of rounds required for combat.

So, easier combat advantage? Encounter/daily powers? They're compensating for the decay in PC damage vs. monster HP. The PC is expected to pick up 1 point of direct attack bonus somewhere. The other 3 come from Expertise.

t~

 

[Aulirophile]

I've looked at the numbers, and what I've seen generally shows that monster hp alone doesn't keep up with the benefits acquired by the average PC. I am not positive of this, admittedly, since pinning down the benefits of the 'average PC' is the really tricky part of the equation, and I am doubtful you can do so. But, if you have actually found a way to do so, feel free to show me.

"Average PC" is an irrelevant concept. You're trying to pin down the minimum. Devs started out with wanting a certain number of rounds per combat per encounter difficulty level and worked backwards, not forwards. The minimum hit% and the way damage on PC powers scales is the result, not the question. It isn't a matter of them being infalliable, it is a matter of they said it is supposed to work a certain way and the only way it works is with Expertise. The system does not work as intended without it. That is not subject to debate, and I take issue with people saying it is when it is a fact stated not only by the developers in that they intended it to work that way by default but made a mistake, but is clearly evident if you've ever bothered to do the math based on the minimum expectations.

The minimum, in terms of damage, is quite easy. So, again, welcome to go do the math on your own. Or you could ask on CharOp, and no doubt someone will be willing to post it for you. I'm not because in my experience unless people do the math themselves they just don't learn anything.

@GM: I am dealing with facts, is the problem. Designers designed the system and have public statements about it that flat out disagree with your opinion. Those are the facts of the way the system was designed, so, yeah, it is equivalent to telling an Astronaut the Earth is flat, when he's seen it is round. It isn't meant to be insulting, any more then knowing a fact and someone else not knowing it is insulting in any other area, but it is true. If this weren't factual I wouldn't care, people could have whatever opinion they wanted to because there wouldn't be any rational determinacy. That just isn't the case here.

 

[FireLance]

All this talk about mathematical proof made me recall a thought experiment that I did, way back when 4E was just released. I developed a 5-PC party that could kill Orcus in five rounds, as long as nobody rolled a natural 1 on any attack (past the first round or so of set up attacks). I am now releasing my raw, unedited notes for your reading pleasure.

Now, some of the rules exploits that I made use of in the notes have since been errata'ed, e.g. the ranger/pit fighter no longer gets to add his Wisdom bonus to the damage rolls of ranger powers, the warlord's lead the attack now only grants a power bonus to attack rolls for one round*, the demigod encounter power recovery system has changed, and there may be a few others. However, I am fairly sure that whatever I have in the document was rules-legal at the time.

Note that the characters aren't fully fleshed out - not all their feat slots are filled and I did not equip them with anything beyond vanilla +6 magic items (I didn't need to). The battleground is also ignored and the thought experiment assumes that they start fairly close to Orcus. However, they key point is: they did not have Expertise and all of them could hit Orcus as long as they didn't roll a 1.

The round-by-round breakdown of the fight starts on page 11.

* To mitigate this problem, the warlord selects thunderous fury as his 17th-level encounter power instead of swapping it out for anvil of doom since the party needs more attack bonuses instead of stunning. He uses it in Round 3 (when he would use anvil of doom in the original document) and grants a +9 power bonus to attack rolls until the end of his turn in Round 4.

EDIT: I should further add that apart from the warlord's genasi race, I believe that most of the rules material was from just the first PH. Most of the splatbooks weren't even released then.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

"Average PC" is an irrelevant concept.

not to us it is not... and not to mike merls...

@GM: I am dealing with facts, is the problem.

You aare dealing in facts...but not all of them. You ignore anything that does not fit your theory (Yes that is all you have a theroy we are discussing),

the same way if some one asked how to find the area of a cube was told 2x2 is 4 is a fact... it just is not the whole story becues cubes need 2x2x2... but you ignore all the other bonuses characters get as they level...

heck why just use at wills? everyone should have encounters and most dailys.... but I mean I guess those don;t count...

Designers designed the system and have public statements about it that flat out disagree with your opinion. Those are the facts of the way the system was designed, so, yeah, it is equivalent to telling an Astronaut the Earth is flat, when he's seen it is round.

So why not do as you say? Oh... becuse mearls said there was not an agreement in house...like us they disagree with the fix...

heck they could make a dozen paragon paths that give +1 to hit...

but instead they gave us a choice... take the feat or not...

It isn't meant to be insulting, any more then knowing a fact and someone else not knowing it is insulting in any other area, but it is true. If this weren't factual I wouldn't care, people could have whatever opinion they wanted to because there wouldn't be any rational determinacy. That just isn't the case here.

I really belive at this time you are trying to bully people into beliveing what you belive no matter what they do or say... that is not how enworld works...please just keep to the facts...

All this talk about mathematical proof made me recall a thought experiment that I did, way back when 4E was just released. I developed a 5-PC party that could kill Orcus in five rounds, as long as nobody rolled a natural 1 on any attack (past the first round or so of set up attacks). I am now releasing my raw, unedited notes for your reading pleasure.

Now, some of the rules exploits that I made use of in the notes have since been errata'ed, e.g. the ranger/pit fighter no longer gets to add his Wisdom bonus to the damage rolls of ranger powers, the warlord's lead the attack now only grants a power bonus to attack rolls for one round, the demigod encounter power recovery system has changed, and there may be a few others. However, I am fairly sure that whatever I have in the document was rules-legal at the time.

Note that the characters aren't fully fleshed out - not all their feat slots are filled and I did not equip them with anything beyond vanilla +6 magic items (I didn't need to). The battleground is also ignored and the thought experiment assumes that they start fairly close to Orcus. However, they key point is: they did not have Expertise and all of them could hit Orcus as long as they didn't roll a 1.

The round-by-round breakdown of the fight starts on page 11.

and that is awsome... like my above examples of characters with no math hole..

even if you belive that some characters are underpowered and need a +1/2/3 more to hit you can not really belive EVERY character needs it do you???

 

[MrGrenadine]

But the idea that that is the only interpretation is where I really have to disagree. I can accept that you feel the lost numbers are far more significant than the acquired powers, items, feats and features. But your claim is that you have mathematically proven that this is so... and you haven't. We haven't seen any such math.

For myself, I'll maintain that the various benefits PCs acquire over the levels more than make up for the lost points of raw math. Especially given those benefits can include those lost points and more. Feel free to disagree, sure, but you certainly haven't proven your interpretation any more mathematically correct than our own.

I think the issue is this: It is easy to prove that character attacks fall behind monster defenses over lvls 1-30, and that to maintain a minimum 55% avg to hit percentage, characters will need a boost. Expertise is that boost, and it fixes that discrepancy. Now, you are correct that certain power/item/feat combinations will also help correct the discrepancy, but purposely choosing one of those particular combinations is essentially the same thing--it doesn't change the fact that characters should hit 55% of the time, and either have to take Expertise, or be very careful about powers/items and feats to get there.

The problem with your assumption that character powers help mitigate the 4 pt spread is that some of the benefits you're factoring in only work when the PCs hit. Its kind of a vicious cycle: the PCs are hitting on 14+, but *could* be consistently hitting on a 10 or better if they hit with certain powers. However, they need a 14+ to hit with the buffing powers, which means they don't consistently get the buff. And if some of those powers are Encounters or Dailies, the problem is compounded.

So why not go with a simple, consistent +1/2/3?

 

[FireLance]

I think the issue is this: It is easy to prove that character attacks fall behind monster defenses over lvls 1-30, and that to maintain a minimum 55% avg to hit percentage, characters will need a boost.

It should be noted, however, that characters usually start at a bit of an advantage. At 1st level, the average weapon attack against a "standard" 1st-level monster is +6* vs. an AC of 15 (monster level + 14), hitting on a 9 or better (60%). At 30th level, assuming only standard bonuses, it becomes +31 vs. an AC of 44, hitting on a 13 or better (40%).

A +1 attack bonus as a class ability can shift this to 65% at 1st and 45% at 30th.

Attacking with combat advantage can further shift this to 70% at 1st and 50% at 30th, or 75% at 1st and the supposably "ideal" 55% at 30 if the character also gets a +1 attack bonus as a class ability.

What I conclude is that higher level characters have to work a bit harder to get the "ideal" 55% hit chance at 30th (or close to it, if they don't have a class attack bonus). YMMV as to whether it is a bug or a feature.

* I am assuming an ability 16, +3 weapon, or an ability 18, +2 weapon.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

it doesn't change the fact that characters should hit 55% of the time, and either have to take Expertise, or be very careful about powers/items and feats to get there.

The problem with your assumption that character powers help mitigate the 4 pt spread is that some of the benefits you're factoring in only work when the PCs hit. Its kind of a vicious cycle: the PCs are hitting on 14+, but *could* be consistently hitting on a 10 or better if they hit with certain powers. However, they need a 14+ to hit with the buffing powers, which means they don't consistently get the buff. And if some of those powers are Encounters or Dailies, the problem is compounded.

So why not go with a simple, consistent +1/2/3?

ok, so just to make sure I am clear... you see options that can keep you up with the math without expertise...

would those need nerfing...

I mean if we bake in the +1/2/3 at 5/15/25 as has been suggested do I take away fighter weapon talent, rouge weapon talent, kensi +1 to hit... epic destiny bonuses to stats???

becuse again I am lefte asking about the super high to hit bonuses already that get 3 pts for free...

 

[Aegeri]

All this talk about mathematical proof made me recall a thought experiment that I did, way back when 4E was just released. I developed a 5-PC party that could kill Orcus in five rounds, as long as nobody rolled a natural 1 on any attack (past the first round or so of set up attacks). I am now releasing my raw, unedited notes for your reading pleasure.

I am going to bet, with almost 99% certainty I'm going to see Lead the Attack on there (the original). In fact, if I don't see Lead the Attack I will eat my hat.

Edit: Oh look! There it is! My hat is safe! In any event, showing you can beat Orcus is like demonstrating that a heavy weight boxer could trivially beat a 99 year old grandmother in a fight. Orcus is one of the worst designed solos in 4E, plus suffers from being a brute and therefore having mechanical suck built into him.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I am going to bet, with almost 99% certainty I'm going to see Lead the Attack on there (the original). In fact, if I don't see Lead the Attack I will eat my hat.

Edit: Oh look! There it is! My hat is safe! In any event, showing you can beat Orcus is like demonstrating that a heavy weight boxer could trivially beat a 99 year old grandmother in a fight. Orcus is one of the worst designed solos in 4E, plus suffers from being a brute and therefore having mechanical suck built into him.

I once (in the orginal mods) saw a tac lord keep warlord strike and lead the attack (lv 1 encounter and lv 1 daily) all the way through to the end in 20's for levels... a hint it might need a nerfing...


(((Haveing said that I do disagree with the nerf... I dislike it being such a short term buff...I just don't know if there was a better one)))

 

[keterys]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you remove every single "+Stat to Attack" and "-Stat to Defense" power (like the dozen or so used in that example combat), or perhaps just cap them at +-3, and bake in the +1/tier Expertise bonus... you end up with a better game.

I'm also pretty darn sure that there shouldn't be any items that give bonuses to attack (Opal Ring of Remembrance, you're on notice), and frankly the epic destinies that give +2 to two stats have totally constrained epic destiny design space.

That doesn't necessarily mean I support Expertise, or am against it, but at a certain point you concede you've got a leaky ship and you look at your array of bailing and self-bailing technologies and you attend to matters.